Facebook Plan to Beat Adblockers Immediately Backfires

Like a whole lot of websites, Facebook has been debating what to do about ad-blocking software that, because it prevents users from seeing ads, also cuts into the site's revenue. Earlier this week Facebook announced its solution: It plans to run ads that circumvent traditional ad blockers.

Facebook's new ads would be coded to appear indistinguishable from regular posts, making it impossible for ad blockers to detect them and thus defeating the software. At least, that was the plan. Adblock Plus, one of the most popular ad blockers, announced today that they've managed to find a way to block Facebook's cleverly disguised ads. The announcement came two days after Facebook implemented the new scheme. "Well that was fast," says Adblock Plus' Ben Williams.

Facebook isn't likely to go down without a fight, however. We're likely to see more back-and-forth between Facebook and ad blockers in the future. But given how quickly ad-blocking software responded to Facebook's latest attempt to circumvent them, it's safe to say the software isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

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